Code named GM10, the program began development in 1982 under Chairman Roger B. Smith and debuted in 1987 with the Pontiac Grand Prix, Buick Regal, and Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme coupés — with the four-door sedan body style introduced for 1990.

The platform cost $7 billion to develop, with engineering executed by the Chevrolet-Pontiac-Canada (CPC) group; also known as the small car division.

This ultimately did not happen; while the A-platform Chevrolet Celebrity and Pontiac 6000 were quickly discontinued, the A-body Buick Century and Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera remained in production until 1996.

[1] It was badly executed from the start, but GM's 1984 reorganization, combined with changing market dynamics, wrought havoc with the program and it never recovered.

In 2008, prominent shareholder activist Robert A. G. Monks noted that GM had lost $2000 on every car it produced in 1989, the year before the last of the original GM10's were launched.